5.0 leaks (that I don't believe)

[Eloah]

This is the 2nd time I see "SCH losing Aetherflow" as an alleged leak. The 1st time I saw it, compounded with the other ridiculous job changes, I wrote it off as looking more fake than plausible. Now I'm not quite sure. Yoshida did say he thought SCH were a bit too powerful in a recent interview. This might be their framework for 'nerfing/adjusting' them.

But he also mentioned that he would rather bring the other jobs up to par, instead of outright nerfing one that is doing well. And while I can agree to SCH being quite powerful, the margin isn't as vast as his statement might make you believe. Remember SCH went into SB as the worst healer, and through adjustments, regained its top spot. But as a general consensus, healer balance is pretty decent right now. In fact job balance is pretty good overall, with most gribes being circumstancial or about the overall playstyle (MCH and DRK). Players just want those minor adjustments for AST and SCH, and for WHM to feel engaging.

As far as the whole SMN/SCH split. I can see why people would like it done, but at this stage, I say just leave it. I know when HW released they indicated they had to be careful since one affects the other. But that doesnt really seem to be the case anymore, going into SB. The entirety of the class system is "unique" but for the most part it doesn't hurt anything. Instead of trying to remove it and rework a lot of quests, I think giving certain quests "locks" that require a Soulstone to unlock, is an easier and simpler solution. I mean didnt they make getting the Soulstone easier. If anything Soulstones are the oddity, you have to incorporate them into each job now. But, basically, its like when you are on a crafter and a quest will state, "requires a desciple or war/magic to undertake"

[Renthas]

What was the issue with tanks having to build Vit to affect tank damage again? I didn't play tanks in this game at the time so genuine question. Was it because you couldn't meld STR to increase damage output?

[Coltvoyance]

These are likely fake, but based on real rumors we've all heard. Some of these seem more plausible after explanations other posters have made, such as tank stance becoming "default" and you only turn DPS stance on and off.

The SCH/SMN split is one I've heard several times in other places. And since Yoshi has said they're redefining Healing, it's the perfect opportunity to do it. As for who gets what, SMN has more unexplored avenues to work with in rebuilding it's skill tree than SCH does (I do wish the SMN kit actually used the pets more). But with the carbuncles, it only makes sense that ACN (already a DPS) would go with SMN and SCH would be it's own thing with fairys exclusively.

As for healing in general, it desperately needs a rebalance. Honestly, it doesn't surprise me that we've heard very little concrete detail about healers, and heard mostly wild rumors. More and more it's starting to seem like they're going to literally tear all three classes apart and press the reset button on how healers work. Shifting away from Shields vs Direct healing; WHM getting a total workup; SCH possibly getting separated from ACN and tweaked. And since AST is based on both of them, I'm sure changes are in store for it as well.

This could be compounded by the fact that we know Tanks are getting set MT/OT roles. They're tightening up how they approach encounters and if SE has a new vision for how encounters work and how each role interacts with each other, that's a huge shift in philosophy and class design.

Tanking, and Healing especially, may be VERY different when Shadowbringers drops. Which makes even radical or absurd changes more likely. The kind that requires it to be divulged all at once, with complete context, in it's own super-extended Live Letter. By this point when SB was releasing, they'd shown and said more about battle changes than we've had right now. All we know for sure right now is TP is going away, MT/OT, and some passing comments about classes XYZ getting a rework. But they've shown nothing; its only been short vague answers all around. Which either means they don't have anything (clearly not the case) or they're too scared to mention everything they're doing without fully explaining it.

Are these real? Probably not. But we're not %100 sure and thats reflective of just how little information we have right now. The next Live Letter can't come soon enough honestly...

[Jonnycbad]

If it meant that VIT is the only primary stat that affects DPS output... So all Fending gear is just going to be VIT + secondary stats... What's going to happen to itemization, given that all gear has VIT plus another primary stat? Will Tanks simply have one less stat on their gear? Will Tanks get an extra secondary stat on gear?

Tenacity could be made into a main stat for PLD along with VIT. They removed Piety as a main stat and made it a secondary, they could do the same for Tenacity.

[swiss_Momo]

some of these, like healer DPS would be a big no thanks for me. Also regarding any leaks posted on /v/ I much rather believe this pic, which was posted an hour or so prior to JP fanfest, anyway


since it still has a few things open, like (demi?)Phoenix for summoner and the drill (lol, Edward) & chainsaw combo for machinist

[gumas]

- tank stance removed = this sounds too good to be true to be honest. idontbelieveyou.jpeg

- tank are back to vit for dps = i can see this happen actually lol

- healer dps kit streamlined = i actually kinda want this to be true but, if this happen the "line" that separated between good, average & bad healer is going to be stretch even thinner

- DRG no more pierce buff yadayada = if it even out the pro and con, i can see it happen

- raise system tweak yadayada = agree with op, i dont see anything that need to be change from this

- PLD mp skill yadayada = TP removal is pretty much confirm if iam not wrong? so yeah i can see this one happen

- MNK... its okay monk, you still cool in my eyes

[Gemina]

Whether a ruse or not, I'll save my reactions for this May when we get something that is actually official.

However, I will say that a rezz elimination penalty is already kind of enforced at the discretion of the healer(s). Many healers are going to stop raising a player after a certain number of KOs and feel he/she is no longer a contribution to the group. It might be ideal to give a player stacks of weakness if they get KOd again before it has a chance to wear off.

[Feidam]

What was the issue with tanks having to build Vit to affect tank damage again? I didn't play tanks in this game at the time so genuine question. Was it because you couldn't meld STR to increase damage output?

It was too strong when combined with dps. Tanks become that much more survivable and that more damaging. If they truly did remove the tank stances this could be a decent balancing mechanism in terms of survival and dps.

That bit in the “leak “about healers damage makes no sense to me. How are they supposed to complete open world Content. Healing themselves when their dps skills are on cooldown and they are just soaking damage? That sounds horrible.

[Grimoire-M]

It also affects DRK somewhat, given their Blood Weapon/Blood Price lockouts.

In addition to their Syphon Strike MP gain.

Then the fact that... They don't actually have a DPS stance, meaning removal of Tank stance means that they'd be always in DPS+Tank "Stance"?

The only notable change to DRK would be needing Blood Price to lock out Blood Weapon and vice versa, if they even want to go that route. It's already better to stagger them as it is.
Anything that relied on emnity from tank stances can gain higher emnity modifiers to compensate and anything that specifically was meant for DPS stance is likely what would be adjusted anyways, given what the meta is. And enough effects depended on Dark Arts that as long as those bonuses stayed it wouldn't matter if Grit was available or not.

Everything else inherits the better secondary effects they got from whatever stance the tank was in otherwise.

Well... There's a lot of issues that can arise from this - Just like last time they made VIT affect Tank DPS.

VIT contributing to Tanks damage, is in of itself not horrible. The issue comes down to balancing it against other stats.

The fact that the greentext states "Only VIT affecting DPS output" suggests that STR, CRIT, DH, DET, SkS and TEN all being worthless stats.

If it meant that VIT is the only primary stat that affects DPS output... So all Fending gear is just going to be VIT + secondary stats... What's going to happen to itemization, given that all gear has VIT plus another primary stat? Will Tanks simply have one less stat on their gear? Will Tanks get an extra secondary stat on gear?

I haven't forgotten the mess that was the split str/vit weighting that actually made secondaries way too good on them in comparison. I'd expect them to simply delete STR entirely from any gear exclusive to the tanks instead. There's some DRG + Tank gear in ARR that wouldn't get touched but that's not a big deal.

An alternative that comes to mind though is just using Tenacity instead of Strength. As in elevate Tenacity to a primary stat specifically for tanks and keep the or improve the defensive bonus in addition to adjusting the damage to that of a primary stat. Then replace Tenacity with either direct hit or a new secondary stat that does something tanks want thanks to other balance changes.

Ehh... SMN isn't really tied to anything from ARC.

*insert wall of text here*

Seriously. I came up with like 6 hours worth of dissection covering lore, story, and mechanics, and you want to know the biggest reason Arcanist can't be removed from SMN?

Carbuncles.

I'm not kidding. They alone screw up every aspect related to splitting Summoner away from Arcanist and integrating Scholar in instead.

Egi Glamours, every instance with Alphinaud and Tataru fighting get partial overhauls and the Carbuncles get explicit animation reworks to account for fairy abilities. Egi being direct upgrades of them could survive mechanically as is but something would have to give elsewhere. The entirety of the ARR SMN questline would need a complete rework to account for not having something to upgrade your Egi into as it's explicitly tied to that area. Nevermind accounting for what happens in Shadowbringers or how it affects Scholar's questline.

SCH only requires you to change some costs and convert some Aetherflow cooldowns to be based around the Fey Gauge as well as altering their introduction at level 30 to support them being an independent job and doesn't affect anything beyond that. SMN requires the same amount of expenditure not only on Aetherflow but also on rethinking their DoT interactions and that doesn't even begin achieve what people want out of the class. Not treading carefully winds up forcing you to rework SCH alongside it in spite of your efforts just because you're trying to seperate SMN from Arcanist explicitly. I'd argue that alongside Carbuncles Aetherflow and DoTs are what makes Arcanist the class it is to begin with, and Egi are the more natural extension of that. SCH's Fairy is its own independent being, SE actually can do whatever they want with her for 1-70 because the quest line was structured well enough to support it so long as they have Esuna somewhere.

Lore wise SMN is also more entrenched in the overall world than SCH is at the moment because it specifically has ties to Allag, Primals, and the Ascians. How often has Nym been referenced outside of the job quest? Two dungeons in the Wanderer's Palace? Scholars are only finally getting new ground to cover in Shadowbringers because of the First explicitly calling out that they have Fae. SMN was one of the few jobs that got people training in the practice outside of the player specifically already. And even if other NPCs can't summon Titan/Garuda for reasons, everyone was present during the Calamity, meaning it is feasible for Prin to teach others how to summon demi-primals in the future. We needed the First to even have the chance of seeing enough SCH soulcrystals as far as we know.

Simply put, there's no good way to seperate Summoner from Arcanist that couldn't be better achieved by simply splitting Scholar off instead.

I'm aware that WoW implemented raise caps. I also have previously mentioned I think that FFXIV should probably do something similar.

To be honest I read it as 3 deaths total, regardless of who dies. The group has 3 lives. The absolute worst case scenario. Your reading seems fair enough to me honestly if LB3 ignored the cap. In an ideal world I'd prefer it if Raises were a cooldown on every class that had them instead of a hard limit based on the encounter. Back to Back raises by one job is sometimes useful utility but the only job I've seen not get crippled by that is SMN because they can afford to hardcast three raises.

[Kalise]

The only notable change to DRK would be needing Blood Price to lock out Blood Weapon and vice versa, if they even want to go that route. It's already better to stagger them as it is.
Anything that relied on emnity from tank stances can gain higher emnity modifiers to compensate and anything that specifically was meant for DPS stance is likely what would be adjusted anyways, given what the meta is. And enough effects depended on Dark Arts that as long as those bonuses stayed it wouldn't matter if Grit was available or not.

Everything else inherits the better secondary effects they got from whatever stance the tank was in otherwise.

The issue with just slapping both effects onto DRK, while other Tanks remain having "DPS Stance" and no-stance (Which is the new "Tank Stance") is that you now give DRK's everything all at once.

That's why it's a bigger issue for DRK than it is for other Tanks, because currently, DRK's "DPS Stance" IS no stance.

The change only mentions removal of TANK Stance not stances as a whole, presumably with the intention to make "Tank Stance" simply not have the -15-20% damage modifier and to buff pre-level 30 Tanks whom have gimpy enmity output.

Thus, giving DRK all the benefits of their "Tank Stance" in addition to all the benefits of their "DPS" stance, at the same time, would be a massive upset in balance.

I haven't forgotten the mess that was the split str/vit weighting that actually made secondaries way too good on them in comparison. I'd expect them to simply delete STR entirely from any gear exclusive to the tanks instead. There's some DRG + Tank gear in ARR that wouldn't get touched but that's not a big deal.

Then we get another meta where Tanks get BiS for the expansion via crafting gear overmelded for STR...

Unless they do in fact remove primary stat Materia and remove overmelding (Which would make Crafted gear terrible... Even for Crafters... Their BiS stuff will be the Yellow Scrip garbage...)

An alternative that comes to mind though is just using Tenacity instead of Strength. As in elevate Tenacity to a primary stat specifically for tanks and keep the or improve the defensive bonus in addition to adjusting the damage to that of a primary stat. Then replace Tenacity with either direct hit or a new secondary stat that does something tanks want thanks to other balance changes.

What do you mean "Replace Tenacity with Direct Hit"?

We already have Direct Hit. 2/3 tanks quite like the stat and it's their second best stat outside after SkS breakpoints.

"Replace Tenacity with a new secondary stat that does something tanks want"

... You mean like Strength? Which Tanks want, because it increases their damage.

As that's the only thing Tanks actually want. Given how more defences are useless 99% of the time due to being able to already mitigate all relevant damage via CD's and healers massively OP oGCD heals.

Seriously. I came up with like 6 hours worth of dissection covering lore, story, and mechanics, and you want to know the biggest reason Arcanist can't be removed from SMN?

Carbuncles.

I'm not kidding. They alone screw up every aspect related to splitting Summoner away from Arcanist and integrating Scholar in instead.

Not really.

Egi Glamours, every instance with Alphinaud and Tataru fighting get partial overhauls and the Carbuncles get explicit animation reworks to account for fairy abilities. Egi being direct upgrades of them could survive mechanically as is but something would have to give elsewhere. The entirety of the ARR SMN questline would need a complete rework to account for not having something to upgrade your Egi into as it's explicitly tied to that area. Nevermind accounting for what happens in Shadowbringers or how it affects Scholar's questline.

Again not really.

Egi Glamours can easily be removed. Given they haven't improved on the system in like forever...

Alphinaud and Tataru can still have attacking Carbuncles. There's no reason why playable ARC having healing Carbuncles (Emerald and Topaz) means that things like Alphinaud's unique Onyx Carbuncle can't still do damage. Or Tataru just having an offensive Carbuncle randomly, in the like 2 fights she actually participates in.

Also, nothing about the SMN questline requires Carbuncles.

You don't "Upgrade" your Carbuncles into Egi. You simply gain the ability to summon Egi.

Lorewise it's not relevant that you had Carbuncles. The only relevance is a gameplay one where your Summon I and Summon II actions are altered after completing the relevant quests. With Summon III being a completely unique skill only obtained by SMN from the relevant quest, which is why it has an Ifrit icon instead of a Carbuncle.

SCH only requires you to change some costs and convert some Aetherflow cooldowns to be based around the Fey Gauge as well as altering their introduction at level 30 to support them being an independent job and doesn't affect anything beyond that.

SCH has to have you balance out them not having Aetherflow for MP generation as well as a "CD" for their oGCD's.

It requires having to think of a new way to generate Fey Gauge.

If they consume Fey Gauge you have to rework Fey Union's mechanics/potency.

They would have to rework Dissipation as that gets a large portion of its power through the extra refresh of Aetherflow to allow more oGCD heals.

They would need a new set of DoT's to work with (Since Healers seem to have this DoT focus with all of them having at least 1 DoT effect to maintain while spamming their nuke)

SMN requires the same amount of expenditure not only on Aetherflow but also on rethinking their DoT interactions and that doesn't even begin achieve what people want out of the class.

What people want out of the class is irrelevant. Since the same can be said about literally any change to any class. Including actually keeping SCH and SMN both branching off ARC.

SMN requires, DWT being put on a 1 minute CD.

A new way to utilize their oGCD's.

That's it.

They don't interact with Carbuncles at all. They don't use Aetherflow for anything other than spend it > get DWT once a minute. They don't necessarily need DoTs (There isn't really a precedent for having DoTs in the Mage role) and could just get nuke potency instead (Or temporary pet buffs, or pet actions that simulate DoTs)

I'd argue that alongside Carbuncles Aetherflow and DoTs are what makes Arcanist the class it is to begin with

Which, SCH actually has more in common with than SMN.

SCH is more revolved around Aetherflow and DoTs than SMN (The majority of SMN's DoT application comes from Tri-Disaster which is used for Ruination moreso than actually applying the DoTs)

The current set up of Carbuncles also leads into SCH more easily, given that there are 2 Fairies and 2 Carbuncles (As opposed to the 3 Egi)

-Snip the lore-

None of that is relevant.

Just because SMN has more interaction with things that are MSQ relevant doesn't make and difference in being based off ARC, which finishes its leveling way before literally any of that stuff comes into play.

Like, the reason why we get Ifrit-Egi first is because that's the only Primal that we have slain at level 30. We haven't even gotten Hydaelyn's blessing at that point, let alone met Ascians and the Allag technology arcs...

Simply put, there's no good way to seperate Summoner from Arcanist that couldn't be better achieved by simply splitting Scholar off instead.

I disagree.

ARC > SCH is far easier to do, given that they share the most similarities between their core gameplay structure.

SMN is a wild-card, because for the longest time, it had literally no job gauge focused around what a SMN should be focused around... SUMMONS.

In ARR it was "DoT Mage" because it's only thing separating its gameplay over BLM was it had 2 DoTs instead of one and had Fester which did more damage when you had DoTs on (With their AoE being entirely Bane because Lol-Bind is and was garbage)

In HW it was "Trance Mage" because it just worked on going into DWT once per minute with an artificial 60s CD via Aetherflow.

Now it's somewhat of a "Summoner" in SB because they finally tied Demi-Bahamut to their kit. Though, it still doesn't care about Aetherflow and just wants you to DWT twice.

Literally, Summoner's entire kit could be remade without Aetherflow really easily, by simply just putting Dreadwyrm Trance on a 1 minute CD and giving them a potency boost to cover the loss of Bio/Miasma. That's it. That's all that is "Required" and you'd still play the same way, spamming Not-Ruin constantly, proccing Not-Ruin IV, using DWT once a minute and every 2 DWT's allowing you to use Demi-Bahamut. All the while, using Tri-Disaster to apply Not-Ruination for extra potency.